by Lois Winston
“Nobody else did neither, but the cops’re desperate to hang this on somebody, and I guess I look good for it.”
My sentiments exactly. “If it makes you feel any better, I was also cautioned not to leave town. I’ve got to run a crop-dusting business, so where did they think I was going to go?”
He quietly digested that little tidbit of news while I cut across three lanes of traffic and jumped the off-ramp for home. As I nosed up to the intersection, I felt Garth tense as I shot through it, but if he had an opinion about my driving, he kept it to himself.
“I find it hard to believe the cops’re thinking somebody murdered my own kin. That ol’ girl didn’t have an enemy in the world. As a matter of fact, if anything, her worst problem was that she liked ever’body. Anybody who paid the slightest bit of attention to her was her newest best friend. I told her it could be dangerous, and maybe that’s what happened.”
“You think she might have taken up with a stranger?”
“Bad company? Can’t see what else it could be.”
I turned off Hatch onto Whitmore, and we pulled into Patience’s driveway.
“Well,” I said, “she couldn’t have been driving my car, because…”
Garth wasn’t listening and I couldn’t blame him. He was staring at the yellow police tape surrounding the perimeter of her house. Occupying the last half-acre of land carved out of its original eighty acres, the house looked like a lot of the old two-bedroom farmhouses.
A sleek, black, forty-five-foot custom diesel pusher loomed over much of the parking space and almost dwarfed the house. Gold pin-striping rippled from front to back. A mountain scene, complete with wolves baying at the moon, was expertly painted on the stern. It was the same type of custom rig that ferried country/western singers around. I also knew, from friends who had them, they started at close to a million dollars.
“Nice land-yacht,” I said.
“If you like I’ll give you a tour, but first I want to take a look inside her place,” he said, hopping out of the truck.
I called at his back, “I think the yellow tape means keep out?”
Garth’s long legs stepped over the yellow tape, and while I was still dithering over unauthorized entry, he went inside. Since both of us were already under suspicion, what could it hurt, right?
Just inside the door, I asked, “Shouldn’t it have been locked? Or at least shut? Shouldn’t there be a patrolman here to keep out the curiosity seekers like us?”
Garth hooked his thumbs in the loops of his jeans and leaned close enough so that his twinkling gray eyes settled onto mine. And with a wink he said, “Nobody’s ever gonna accuse you of being dumb, are they, darlin’?”
SIX
The interior of Patience’s country cottage was almost as dark as the lingering summer twilight. But even in the dim interior, I was distressed to see two floral print chairs were upended, looking like chubby schoolgirls with their white panties showing. And except for her big heavy upright piano, everything had been dumped over or tossed against the wall hard enough to break. The sofa’s cushions were slashed, the cotton stuffing pulled halfway out.
Garth stood muttering at the disaster inside. “I’ve seen Oklahoma tornados do less damage than this.”
I answered something about my own housekeeping skills and stepped around him. Whatever happened here was not the work of sloppy housekeeping.
“Cops do this?” Garth asked, bewilderment turning to anger. “Tear up her house like this?”
“Of course not. They must have found it this way.”
“Then why was the door left open? Something ain’t right here.”
I was still fumbling along the wall feeling for a switch when Garth disappeared into the next room.
“Hey! Where you going?” I shouted into the void. The dark interior had that violated feeling and it was beginning to creep me out. “I should call Caleb!”
“If he’s a cop, you can count me out,” he called back. “Gimme a minute? I wanna see how bad it is.” His voice faded as he went into another room.
Unwilling to stumble around a dark room, I anxiously held my post by the front door and waited for Garth to rescue me, that is, if he would stop his exploring of every room.
I was about to holler at him to stop fooling around when I felt the hair on the back of my neck tingle. Someone was standing close enough for me to feel his breath on my neck. I saw Garth go into a back room, didn’t I? Then who was standing behind me?
I could feel my knees start to buckle. Taking a shaky breath, I squeaked, “Something I can do for you?” I was sure someone was behind me, and to prove my point, a cool, round, cylinder was pressed firmly into the small of my back.
“Don’t turn around,” said a rusty whisper. “You and your boyfriend took what’s not yours, so where is it, girly?”
With my heart hammering in my chest, I squeaked, “What do you mean? Who are you anyway?” I was babbling, hoping to stall him until Garth came back. What was taking Garth so long? Didn’t he realize someone was out here holding me at gunpoint?
The whisperer hissed, “Don’t play cute with me, sister. You know what I’m talking about.”
“I most certainly do not!” I was incensed at the idea of being accused of theft. Murder maybe, but not theft. I pointed a shaking finger in the direction Garth went and croaked, “That’s Patience’s nephew back there, and if I scream he’s going to come out, and if he does, he’s going to come out swinging.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he snarled, pushing the tip of the gun harder into my spine.
Until now, no one had ever pointed a gun at me, much less backed it with such intense emotion. I couldn’t have screamed if I wanted to. The glue that held me so well to this spot had spread its way up to my arms, and I found myself unable to move, much less call for help.
He poked me again. “What’s he doing in there?”
Anger knocked against my better judgment. “Making me a tuna sandwich!” I snapped. “Why don’t I call him and we can find out.” There was a crash from the other room, and I felt the wisp of air as the door opened behind me. I started to turn around, but he poked me again in the back. “Don’t turn around. I know who you are, girly, and where you live, so don’t think this is the last you’ll hear from me.”
Then the door softly closed, and my gun-toting whisperer disappeared as quietly as he had entered.
Suddenly, a wall light and three lamps in the living room came on. I stood where my captor left me, in front of the door, small sounds coming out of my mouth.
“Hey, hey, darlin’, what’s wrong? You look like you been chased by a herd of crazed armadillos.”
“Arma—di—dillos?” I stuttered, my nerves disconnecting. “Just a minute, I have to sit down.”
He managed to reach me as I collapsed onto the ruined couch. “Somebody here? What’d they want?”
“I don’t know,” I said weakly. “He kept saying we took what doesn’t belong to us.”
“Like what—money? That’s a hoot. I mean, look at this house. Anything here say money, jewelry, or imported wine cellar to you? Whoever he was, he sure did a number on this place.”
I thought of Caleb’s calm reasoning and said, “Don’t touch anything. I’m going to call the sheriff.” But before I could get back to the truck, Caleb rolled up in his sheriff’s car.
~*~
“Don’t you look at me like that, Caleb Stone,” I said, thrusting out my chin. “We found it this way. And I presume by the look on your face, you didn’t leave it like this either.”
He made a noise in the back of his throat, taking in the damage, then giving Garth and me a sour look. “The place had double bolts on front and back doors, I checked. Both doors were locked.”
That started me up. “Speaking of which, why isn’t there a patrol car out here to watch the place?” I ignored the two gawking deputies and went on the offensive. “Your guys let some scumbag waltz in here and vandalize the house of a dead wom
an. It’s a damn good thing the poor woman can’t see this mess.”
To his credit, he took the tongue-lashing and then barked over his shoulder, “Where’s Jerry?”
The deputy visibly quivered. “Uh, don’ know, but I’ll find out,” and he scurried out to call headquarters. He was back in a minute. “Dispatch says someone called in a barn fire at Jerry’s dad’s. He wouldn’t have left for any other reason… sir.”
Caleb set his mouth in a grim line. “I’ll deal with Jerry later.” Then he jerked a thumb at the door. “You and Dan are in charge of perimeter, and yes, it’s a crime scene. Go on.” He waited until they were out of hearing and then turned to me.
“Where were you two when the intruder came in?”
I ignored his question for a moment and pointed at the doorjamb. “Look at this, Caleb,” I said, pointing out the lack of splinters on the door. “If you didn’t find the place like this, it means he didn’t find what he was looking for, or he wouldn’t have stuck around to point a gun in my back and threaten me.”
“Turn around.”
“What for? You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”
“Don’t be a ninny. Close your eyes. Where did you feel the gun, about here?”
“Lower,” I said, feeling the ghostly pressure again. “At my waist level.”
“Mm-mm.” I’d heard that hmm enough to know he was now mentally sorting through faces and profiles, names and crimes, while he stood holding a finger at my midsection.
“Now think back to the moment when you realized someone was behind you, before he or she spoke. Could you describe any smell or odor about the person? Perfume, aftershave, body odor? Anything at all?”
I took an experimental sniff of the air, filtering memory through my nose. Nothing floated to the surface. “Sorry, no.”
He hmmed again, as if I’d given a reasonable answer. “Your visitor must have been a very cool customer. Stress usually causes people to sweat profusely and then perfume or aftershave really gets strong. Sometimes a witness can identify the perp by smell if not sight. Did he say anything else?”
“He said we took something that wasn’t ours.”
“Did he mention Garth by name?”
“No, I think we interrupted his ransacking. I guess he either decided he didn’t want to tangle with Garth, or he believed me when I said I didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course, I was shaking so badly I couldn’t tell, and I never did turn around in time to see him.” Then I remembered something. “He whispered.”
“Could it have been a woman, disguising her voice in a whisper?”
“It was a guy.” I frowned. “Had to be. He called me ‘girly.’ My granddad used to call me girly. He also seemed pretty sure of himself, like we were the intruders, not him, though he took a powder when Garth dropped something in the kitchen.”
“Could he have mistaken you for someone else? After all, you came in with Garth.”
“Like who? The only other person Garth knows in this town just died.”
“Anything else?”
“The whisperer? He told me he knew who I was and where I lived. Caleb, what’s to keep this guy from coming to our house?”
“There’s a pretty big crowd of people who know where you live, Lalla, but I’ll put a deputy out on your road, and you really should get a security system.”
“Noah doesn’t like the shiny wires, or the beeping of anything electronic, and he wouldn’t stand for an unsightly keypad. He says a shotgun is all the deterrent he needs.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll do you, since we both know your dad could sleep through the Second Coming.”
“Just as well,” I murmured. “He’s too mean to be anywhere I’d want to be for eternity.”
Two more police cars rolled up, blue lights churning. Doors slammed and someone laughed at a joke.
I looked at Garth, his arms crossed, leaning against a wall. I didn’t have to know the guy very well to know we were both thinking the same thing: Here, in the victim’s ransacked house, stand the two main suspects.
Detective Rodney walked through the door and huddled with Caleb and his deputy, while Garth and I stared at the floor. Caleb tapped me on the shoulder and nudged me away from Garth’s hearing and said, “Don’t, whatever you do, tell Garth Thorne a thing.”
I pulled back to look him in the eyes. “You can’t be serious!”
“Yes, I am,” he whispered. “How’d he get here?”
“You know how he got here. You and your buddy Rodney set it all up.”
His frown deepened. “Fast work, even for you, Lalla.”
I gasped, my cheeks flamed, and then I reached out and slapped him.
He pursed his lips and, turning on his heel, snapped at his deputy, and they went out the door. Detective Rodney followed them out, but not before adding a wink at me over his shoulder.
I had managed to whip myself up into a white-hot mad and needed to take it out on the first person who lit my match. Couldn’t seem to help myself. Unfortunately, Caleb had been it.
Caleb came back inside, walked over to Garth, and said something I couldn’t hear. Garth did a negative headshake and a disinterested lift of his big shoulders. After being hauled in for questioning and then detained on a bogus warrant, he had a right to be wary of the police, I thought.
Caleb glared at the two of us and thumbed at the door, indicating that we’d been dismissed. Stepping outside, Garth took my elbow and gently guided me away from the knot of police toward his rig. I thanked him in a shaky voice.
He grinned. “Mind letting me know how you get away with slapping a sheriff?”
“We’re friends—at least we used to be. I shouldn’t have. I’m not myself.”
“He deserved it,” he snapped. “But remind me not to get on your bad side, darlin’.”
“This has been just about all I can take for one day,” I said, turning to go.
He caught my arm and said, “Wait up a minute. Your sheriff friend said my aunt’s body won’t be released for burial yet. What’s that all about?”
“Caleb says they’ll do an autopsy. They have to when cause of death is unclear.”
He frowned, not happy with the explanation. “But it’s obvious. She somehow got your car busted up and drove it into a lake. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but alcoholism runs in my family. By the way, am I missing something here? Are you two an item?”
“Caleb and I go back to the third grade, if that counts. But we’re not romantically involved, if that’s what you mean.”
“Somebody forgot to tell that ol’ boy. The look I got when he came in the door and saw the two of us together made me feel like a kid with my hand in the cookie jar,” he said, reaching out to stroke my arm. “And a purty damn near perfect cookie jar it is, darlin’. Which reminds me, can I buy you dinner?”
“Sure,” I said, and scratched my number on a card I found in my purse. “We’re going to have plenty of time, since we’ve been advised not to leave the county.”
“What about tonight? I clean up good,” he said, sticking the tips of his thumbs in the top of his tight jeans. His humor was back and so was the slow, sexy smile.
“Oh, sorry, not tonight. If I had that gun pointed at my head again, I’d have to say go ahead and shoot. I’m that tired and I have to get up for work at the ungodly hour of three a.m.”
“Okay, I’ll take a rain check then. You drive careful, hear?”
He stood perfectly still next to the door of his rig as I backed out of the driveway. Perhaps he couldn’t see past the light reflecting in the windshield, or perhaps he was too shocked from today’s revelations to do anything but hang onto the door of his motor home while I drove away.
I turned right onto Hatch and headed for the freeway. What was it the intruder whispered? That we’d taken something that wasn’t ours? Could there have been money in Patience’s house? Even more disconcerting, could the gun-toting whisperer be the one responsible for her death?
&nb
sp; And what was it with Caleb? I, too, had felt angry vibes zipping across the room. Never mind cookie-jar metaphors, I had one of my own. I felt like I was in kindergarten again, and I’d been caught making a mess.
~*~
Instead of taking the on-ramp to the freeway, I turned left at the frontage road and headed for the safe warmth of Roxanne’s Café. I needed to talk to someone I trusted.
Still on her first marriage, Roxanne hadn’t experienced the joys of divorce lawyers, and from the contented smiles between her and her husband of twenty-five years, she wouldn’t be getting one anytime soon. They both cheerfully worked the café day and night to keep two kids in college. Terrill was at Berkeley, and Maya, the baby, was at the local City College studying her bellybutton. That is, until she discovered the secret of the universe, or until I succumbed to her constant entreaties and introduced her to the world she craved—modeling.
Roxanne didn’t think much of my last job. Look where it’d gotten me, she said, two broken marriages and an unreasonable fear of aging. Lately, though, Roxanne was beginning to thaw a bit. She no longer referred to the Eileen Ford Company as those “White Slavers,” but she still didn’t take to the idea of her precious baby surviving on a concentration camp diet, and for once, I couldn’t disagree.
Roxanne was my friend, and her daughter was the nearest thing I was ever going to have to a child of my own, but Roxy was going to lose her baby girl to the first strong gust blowing through town, with or without my help. Maya had a hunger for the big city, and if any child was born for the spotlight, it was Maya. Tall, graceful, and lovely beyond words, everybody who came into contact with her knew it wouldn’t be long before she found a way to make her dream come true. Roxanne still held the vain hope that botany, history or even belly dancing would jump up to strike her daughter’s fancy. However, Maya was eighteen, and nothing had deterred me at that age.
I flopped onto a stool at the counter and waited until Roxanne, coffeepot in hand, turned and saw me.
“Leon heard it on the scanner, huh?” Daytime kept Leon busy building houses, but he still managed to cook the delectable pies that had people like me coming in on a daily basis. He also kept a VHF radio tuned to police and fire frequencies while he made those pies. Between Leon’s radio and a coffee klatch of off-duty cops, nothing stayed private.
